When Stars Collide
by MakeYouNotice
Summary: Memory is an interesting thing and important too, since it makes us who we are. Doesn't it? The Autobots are about to find out just how important it really is when one of their own crash lands on earth with new memories, a new family and a whole lot of new secrets. She's alone in figuring out who she is as the clock ticks on earth's sun.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hello everyone and welcome to my new story. It's complete and expecting regular Monday updates. It also has quite a few OCs in it, so if you don't like then kindly turn around and head the other way. **

**Disclaimer: Transformers and any recognizable characters belong to people who are not me. Sadly. **

**Now, without further ado, the prologue.**

**When Stars Collide**

**Prologue**

**Safe and Sound**

"_Hold on to this lullaby, even when music's gone"_

I remember the day the music stopped.

Perhaps the lack of music would not have been so jarring in someone else's housing unit, but in ours it was completely unheard of. My creators were famous painters and enjoyed playing music when they worked which was nearly all the time. As a result, the music played non-stopped. That artistic line of code was one of the more dominate ones passed down to me and my twin. We were a dynamic duo; she composed music and I sung to it, even danced sometimes and we were on the fast track to being as famous as our parents. I used to tell her that, though we had the same basic build, her slightly smaller and far more agile frame was better suited for dancing than my more armored, taller one. She always ignored me. Ours was the music that always played and ours was the music that was missing that orn when I got home from the markets farther in town. With Praxus being one of the last neutral city-states left and it being on the way to Decepticon occupied Kaon, supplies were getting scarce here.

I will never forget the sight that greeted me upon entering my family's housing unit. It looked as though a massacre had occurred right there in the entryway. Energon was splattered across the walls, obscuring paintings and holo-pics of our family. The security pad for my creators' room was broken, as if someone had gotten frustrated and just smashed their way in.

And smash they did. Their room was in shambles. That was nothing compared to their frames, though, lying on the berth in a grotesque parody of peaceful recharge, the little armor they had ripped and energon still leaking from their shredded spark chambers. I couldn't, didn't want to process what I was seeing. I backed out of the room and turned towards the room I had shared with my sister and stopped once again to stare.

There was a second trail of energon that led to our room. The room, I was surprised to see, was as clean as I had left it, the only difference being the piece of something blue lying on her berth. Was that _armor_? I rushed over and picked up the piece of deep blue, _familiar_, armor, armor that I knew as well as I knew my own. It was the piece of my sister's forearm guard where I had carved her name.

It was a clear message. She was alive, though that didn't help any of my questions. Why kill my parents and keep her? Why my family at all? Who were they?

I sat on the berth and traced the glyph etched into the armor with my fingers as I came to a decision. I was going to find my sister.

0o0

A half cycle later found me heading toward Kaon, the home of thieves, Decepticon capital, and coincidentally (_you know it's not_) the place my twin was being held.

I had disappeared from my housing unit as quickly as possible and left Praxus. The news was everywhere and the whole family was pronounced dead, prompting me to get a new paintjob to better hide, all the while thankful our creators had taught us how to and that I had the paint for it. Hating even more that I had to cover up the supernova my creators had so painstakingly painted onto my armor. I was a show-femme, they said, and I had to look like it. But it was okay for a while. I knew the right people to talk to and how to go about it. I got a name from one of my more unorthodox resources a few orns later.

Soundwave. (_Who's this, Creator? Well, this is the mech who's going to keep you safe, no matter what happens to us. His designation is Soundwave._)

Of course, I headed straight for Kaon after I got that bit of information with a determination only the young and naive had. Soundwave was infamous, the Decepticon Third in Command, and I figured that their capital had to be where to find him.

Soundwave was a promise-breaker too, it seemed and I was determined to get my justice. Young and naive.

Find him, I did. I was so very foolish to think I could just get my sister and go and I paid for that foolishness in pain and energon.

0o0

Five vorns and I still wasn't quite used to the sound of a roaring, bloodthirsty crowd and the stench of death that clung to the gladiator pits. We didn't really fight here often and I didn't really want to with the horror stories I had heard back home. The compound Soundwave kept us in was close enough that you could hear the crowds when the fights started in the middle of the orn and since the compound was underground where there was no sunlight to tell the time, it was our cue to start sparring. He claimed to be training us, though for what, he never said.

When I snuck into the city-state of Kaon and found his hideout, I had expected to see my sister being tortured or in stasis, or _anything_ other than what I found. Because I found my twin perfectly calm and painted a bright blue to hide the meteor shower that had been painted on her with a feared Decepticon general nearly pleading with me to join him and my sister. I remember thinking that he might not have actually been a promise-breaker. Maybe he was going to take care of us. Then I thought of my Creators lying dead and killed that idea because, until I knew the truth, I wasn't believing anything. I still agreed because my sister was there, so he began training us, teaching us how to fight, how to hack, Pit, he even taught us how to stand and intake. He made us into warriors and today he was sending us back into the gladiator pits to test how much we had learned and how hard could fight.

I didn't know it, but that was the last time I would ever take an order from Soundwave.

0o0

She went first, matched up against some slow-moving behemoth of a mech, whose designation I never bothered to catch. She was fast and agile, so neither of us were all that worried. Soundwave had taught us well. Still, I told her, "Good luck. Try not to make him suffer _too_ much."

The visor she had taken to wearing flickered as she smiled and said, "Promises, promises."

"That you'll never make," I finished as she vanished up into the pits.

Those were the last words we said to each other before my world literally came crashing down.

0o0

Ratchet looked up from the spark monitor he was adjusting at the sound of movement. He glanced down at the femme youngling they had pulled from the wreckage of Kaon two orns ago. She had been in stasis-lock since they found her, badly damaged, in a half-dug hole, looking as if she had tried to dig herself out and passed out before she could finish.

"Ah, you're awake," he said as her optics onlined. He leaned over her, unplugging the cords that led to various vital-monitoring machines. "What is your designation?" he asked. He would need it to finish filling out the patient report on this.

Her optics flickered, dimming and brightening again as she looked up at him. "I don't… I don't know."

0o0

Kaon was in ruins. His old home was in ruins.

Beneath his facemask, Soundwave smiled.

His plan would work. The femmes had been split up, one to each faction. He had trained them as best he could as an ex-gladiator, making sure it would stick through the memory wipe he had put them both through.

He would keep his word.

Soundwave would watch over them both, an old friend helping him out on the Autobot side. The other mech wouldn't sell secrets, he'd made that clear, but he would make sure the femme stayed safe and kept up her training.

He turned from the window at the sound of a groan behind him. The visor onlined and turned toward him, turning from blue to red as it did. She was awake.

"Query: designation," he said. He needed to know it the firewalls and modified memories were holding.

The newly red visor flickered as she accessed her memories and, without hesitation, she said, "Decepticon saboteur Lightningstrike."

0o0

She was one of their best tacticians when she bothered to access the programming.

_Missing._

She was a fierce frontliner, trained by Ironhide himself.

_Something was missing._

_Something vital was missing._

She was straightforward, wore her spark on her forearm armor, the perfect Autobot.

_It hurt._

_Primus, it hurt._

She was Strikezone and something was missing.

0o0

She was one of their best spies, when she bothered to access the programming.

_Dead._

She was a warrior and hacker, trained by Soundwave himself.

_That bond was dead._

_That bond had shriveled up and died._

She was evasive, her spark locked behind something thicker than armor, the perfect Decepticon.

_She knew she was lying and the bond was as alive as she was._

She was Lightningstrike and she didn't belong.


	2. 1 Dog Days Are Over

**Chapter 1**

**Dog Days are Over**

"_Leave all love and your longing behind, you can't carry it with you if you want to survive"_

"Wren!" a shout shattered the near silence of this little corner of the park. The scarred girl's head snapped up as she closed the thick book in her lap and reached up to shade her eyes to look at the boy that had called her. Gabriel stood before her, smiling as he pushed a hand through his sweaty blond hair. He had been out running when he saw her reading under this tree if the sweat pants and tank top he was wearing were any indication.

"Hello, Gabriel," she said, frowning a bit. She wondered just why he was bothering to talk to her. They had known each other for a month or so, practically since she had rolled into Tranquility. She had bumped into him at the library the week she showed up and found out he worked there. They had struck up a friendship from there, based on his teasing about the governmental science books and romance novels she always checked out. He said they were boring and she said that it was always a good thing to know about the government of the country you live in. In reality, while she was curious about the government structure, it was the hearts of these strange new organic creatures she wanted to know about.

"I was wondering if you wanted to go out to lunch with me. Like, today?" he asked, brown eyes glinting as he pushed his hands into the pockets of his sweat pants. He was nervous, she realized, as he started to fidget. She would have said yes to him, she really did like his company, but, "I don't have any money on me." It wasn't a lie. She had no money at all, having neither a job nor others to provide her with it.

Gabriel shrugged and his smile widened, showing off pearly whites as he said, "That's fine. I asked; I pay. If that's okay with you?" he added as an afterthought. He knew plenty of women that had reacted badly to that bit of Southern hospitality. Back in his hometown of Middleton, Tennessee, any woman would've loved the gentlemanly gesture but things were different here in Nevada. Gabe hoped he hadn't offended Wren. He did like the girl with her sarcastic sense of humor and snarky comebacks.

Wren deliberated for a moment, tilting her head to the side as she watched him and finally nodded.

"Great!" he said. "Just wait here while I go home and change. This is the end of a three mile jog and these clothes don't smell too fresh right now. My house is right down the street so fifteen minutes at most, okay?" She nodded again and he turned and jogged off down the street.

She stared after him and thought to herself, _what just happened?_

0o0

True to his word, Gabriel had come back fifteen minutes later, dressed in a white shirt and jeans to find Wren still under the same tree, reading as if nothing had happened. He stood in front of her and cleared his throat. She held up her index finger and said, "Give me a minute. I want to finish this chapter."

Gabriel stood still for all of thirty seconds before he started to fidget. Blue eyes flickered up and a dark eyebrow arched. "Why don't you sit, it you feel uncomfortable?" she said,

He sat as she returned her attention to the book and, not quite a minute later, he was twitching again. Wren sighed this time as she looked over at him. Smiling faintly, she said, "You really can't sit still, can you?"

"No, not really," he said, rubbing at the back of his neck and smiling nervously. "Sorry to distract you."

"No, no. I'm done, anyway. C'mon." Wren shoved her book into her beat up black messenger bag and stood, waiting for him to lead the way.

0o0

The café had turned out to be a little open air bistro across the street from the park and right beside the lot she had parked in. They were seated in one of the outside tables, waiting on their food and Gabe had taken the opportunity to play Twenty Questions. "So, what are you reading now?" he said, twirling his straw around in his soda.

"_Harry Potter_, today," Wren wasn't quite paying attention, her eyes wandering to the lot she had parked in.

"_Harry Potter_? Isn't that sort of, I don't know, _childish,_ for you?" He loved the books but they didn't seem to fit his image of her.

_That_ got her attention. She stared at him for a moment before saying, "Maybe, but I do like them. Plus, I didn't really have much of a childhood to read them in." _Translation,_ she thought, _I don't remember _having_ a childhood._

The waitress brought out their food, a vegetable wrap for her and a burger for him, and Wren couldn't help but think of the first time she had eaten like this. It had come as such as a surprise when she realized how well this body could process it and turn it into useful energy. She still didn't particularly eat much but, since her primary choice of fuel was scarce on this planet without proper tools, she made do with this.

They sat in silence and ate for a moment, but it seemed that Gabriel wasn't at all comfortable with silence and he broke it by saying, "Speaking of childhoods, you've never told me about yours, even after I spent half the day telling you about mine. So come on, spill."

Wren wrinkled her nose, "Aw, my childhood was nothing, boring. It doesn't bear talking about." In truth, the memories she had managed to recover were still blurry, full of echoing voices and faces of people long dead and forgotten.

"It couldn't have been that bad. Tell me something," he said, truly curious now.

"Umm…" Wren scratched her nose as she thought. She wasn't sure just how much to tell this little human about her experience growing up. Eventually, she came up with something like the truth. "Well, I spent most of my teen years living with a huge group of guys, family friends, after my parents died. They were… interesting, to say the least."

"So were you the only girl?"

"Yeah, though you wouldn't know it sometimes with all the gossiping and high-pitched screams." The thought had a little smile growing on her face as Gabe tilted his head in confusion.

"Screams?"

"The twins, Bee and I were nothing but pranksters so there was no shortage of yelling and running for our lives. For that reason, I'm pretty fast on my feet."

Gabe grinned too, understanding perfectly. He had done the same to his older brother when he was younger and it had never failed to make them laugh. Wren had never struck him as a prankster, so that just begged the question, "What were they like?"

"The twins and Bee? Man, they were something else. The twins were rude, crude and more vain than I would've thought possible for males. They were smart for all that, though, and knew how to plan a prank. Bee was the sweet one, everyone's best friend. He was our resident escape artist and used the puppy dog eyes to get himself out of trouble and us into more quite a few times." She shook her head, still smiling lightly.

"You lied to me! That doesn't sound boring at all! I know you have tales; every great prankster does, so tell me. What's the worst?" he leaned forward eagerly, his food forgotten as Wren thought.

"Well…" What could she tell the man before her that didn't give away too much? "A couple of years back, the twins and I threw the birthday party for Orion, the guy who owned the house. Whoever decided it was a good idea obviously had something against him."

"Aw, that don't sound so bad," Gabe said. It wasn't really a prank, and definitely not something he would call one of his best if it were him.

Wren snorted, "Oh, believe me, it was bad in the very best of ways. See, the twins and some of Orion's best friends wanted to shake him up a bit. He's always so calm and we were all sick of it and the twins happened to know a secret; Orion had a little thing for me. So we thought what better present for the birthday boy than have his favorite person bound to him 24/7? So, early on the morning of his birthday I found him and distracted him long enough for the twins to cuff us together. Once he figured out that I wasn't going to even attempt to help him un-cuff us, he spent the rest of the day alternating between happiness that his best friend was attached to him and utter fear because it was _me_ that was attached to him." She grinned, her teeth startlingly white against her brown skin, reliving one her better ideas and favorite days.

"That hadn't been the end of our plan, of course. Once the sun went down and the twins disconnected us, I disappeared after telling him to get ready for his party. When he showed up in the common room later on, I convinced him to let loose a little and have some fun. Of course, it had taken a lot of begging, promises and bargaining but I managed to get him to stay. Then came the drinking portion of the evening. Let's just say, by the time the sun rose again, no one was left standing."

"That is classic!" he said around his laughter. "But why would he be scared? You can't be that terrifying."

"Easy. He knows just what I can do if I put my mind to it. And what happens when I get overly bored. I once built a working catapult out of scrap metal because I had nothing better to do," she shrugged. She'd always had an overactive mind and it tended to wander. For that reason, she hung around with the twins quite often because they were never _not_ doing something.

Gabriel nodded, "My niece is like that. She's smart as a whip and because of that, she gets bored quickly in school, since she's so far ahead of them."

Before she could reply, the waitress came by again to clean off their table hand them the check. Gabe again insisted on paying and since Wren had no money, she let him do it.

Wren began to walk towards the parking lot when Gabe called out, "Hey, Wren?" She turned and raised an eyebrow. "I was wondering... Well, the gallery I show paintings in is having a charity even and I need a plus one. I was wondering if you'd like to go. Not like a date or anything, 'cause you're awesome and all, but I don't like you like that and-"

"I don't see the harm. Why not? When is it?" she said, cutting off his babble.

"Ah… It's next Saturday. Formal dress. Can you do it?" he said, still slightly nervous. His brother had already backed out, saying he hated functions like this. Gabe didn't like them either, but he was needed at this one and he was hoping Wren could help relieve some of his boredom.

"Of course. I'll be by your house at eight and we can leave together." When he nodded she smiled and said, "See you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"At the library. I was under the impression you worked there as well on most days," she said slowly, as if she were talking to someone really stupid.

"Right, right. Tomorrow. See ya!"

Wren just smiled and waved before walking toward the parking lot. She found the car in a relatively secluded corner. She grasped the handle of the black Dodge Charger and instead of opening the door, simply vanished. The car turned on by itself and rolled out of the lot and into traffic, never noticing that Gabriel had been watching from the sidewalk the whole time.

* * *

**Here it is, the first chapter. It gets more interesting, I promise. We even get to see people (okay, mechs) we know next chapter. **


	3. Intermission 1

**Intermission 1**

**Use Somebody**

"_I've been roaming around, always looking down and all I see"_

The first few months on this little blue marble called Earth were strange.

She had landed in a desert with Sunstreaker. A bad place to land, as she found out when she had to spend joors- _hours_, humans called them hours- listening to him bitch and moan about sand in his joints and scratches in his paint. He was more of a femme than she was sometimes.

By some miracle, they landed near Las Vegas during a car show. She chose a black Dodge Charger to scan. It was the newest model, a 2009, and had a single white stripe on it. Sunstreaker, the vain glitch, chose a brilliant yellow 2009 Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. The brightest, flashiest, most expensive car he could find. And he wonders why he was never sent out on reconnaissance missions.

They traveled together for a while. She wasn't sure how long because the days began to blur and run together. They parted ways near L.A. She loved the mech but she just couldn't spend long periods of time with him. The both of them were way too hot-headed for that. How they ever got to be the best of friends, she would never know.

After he left, she started to make her way across the state of California. Her com systems were shot to the pit during landing and had already been on the fritz since the battle on the _Ark_, or else she would have contacted Prime and his team. He had said they were on Earth in his message, just not _where_. She could understand the need for secrecy, there were still Decepticons about, but _slag_, he couldn't have given a _hint_?

She turned her processor toward understanding the planet and its creatures in order to keep from cursing Prime and his vagueness all day. It hadn't taken too long for her to figure out how to tweak her holo projection so that it produced a solid, corporeal human form and after that, it was just a matter of deciding just what this new form of hers would look like. She finally settled on a slightly tall, brown-skinned female with black hair bound up in braids and eyes the same bright blue as her optics. There were other things, defaults to her holo program. There were scars littering her body, most old and healed enough that you had to know to look for them, while others were deep and darker than the skin around them. A few glyphs also lined her left arm. There weren't many, just the ones for her rank in the crease of her elbow, the Autobot creed circling her wrist and her name on her shoulder.

When she had decided the holo was acceptable, she'd ventured into some of the more populated parts of San Francisco, the city she had been in at the time, to test it, finding out just how far she could venture from her real form and how long she could keep it up. She even eventually found that human food could be used and converted into energy to use to keep the holo running.

Through all this though, she was still looking for any hint of her comrades. When she heard about the Mission City 'incident' that had happened just two years before, she knew it had something to do with her kind. And that was before she heard the rumors of giant alien robots that had emerged from it. That didn't mean she knew where to look for them, of course. If she knew her adoptive family, and she did, they cleared out of that area as soon as they could. But she also knew her Prime, and he would want to stay near the city he had nearly destroyed to make sure it stayed protected. It was with that thought that she began looking for strange occurrences involving cars in and around Colorado.

That was partly how she had found herself in this boring little small town called Tranquility. She had been on her way through it, did a routine check of police records, not really expecting to find anything, and had been surprised to find several incidents involving a yellow Camaro. Once she had looked the car up she couldn't help but think, _now doesn't that look like somebody that I used to know?_

The possibility was what made her stay longer than the time it took to drive straight through the town. It was the kid at the library that convinced her to stay more than a day. It had been over a month now, the longest she had ever stayed in a human town. She shouldn't call him a kid, she supposed. On this world he was a full grown man, but she couldn't quite understand the concept of aging so quickly.

She still wasn't quite sure why she had chosen to linger so long in this town. The boy, man, Gabriel, had something to do with it, as did the prospect of seeing her old friend and almost brother. The amount of excitement she garnered from that possibility and having a human friend to guide her, even if he didn't know her secret, was the reason she couldn't (of course, Ratchet would say that she just choose not to) keep up the patch jobs she had running on her various downed systems. With her spark detection system down, half her scanners glitching, and her EM field dampener on the fritz, she was a sitting duck, as the humans say.

That was the excuse she used to explain the disaster that was Gabriel's party.


	4. Chapter 2

**A/N: I am a fail. I am such an epic fail. I'm not even gonna give an excuse. I'm just gonna post these chapters (two for the price of one) and hope you'll forgive me.**

**Chapter 2**

**Thnks fr th Mmrs**

"_Thanks for the memories, even though they're not so sweet"_

"Remind me again, _why_ am I here?"

Gabriel grinned over at his companion. Wren stood beside him, glass of wine in hand and a slight sneer on her face. They both knew exactly why she was there, but she was learning to hate these kinds of functions quickly and he couldn't blame her. "I needed a ride, duh. And you came in because you can't stand being away from my charms for long." That got him a none-too-gentle slap on the back of his head.

"Better question; why are we dressed like this?" her voice was annoyed as she gestured to his tux and her dress. She looked good, she knew she did, but that didn't stop the memories of the so-called parties her parents would drag her and her sister to in the Towers and her attire only heightened the feeling. She looked down at the silky, floor length black dress and sneered again. She had created it herself using templates she had found online to create something that mostly covered her scars and Wren thought it had come out rather well. Her fingers twitched and she barely stopped them from tracing the newest scar along the right side of her face and neck. Her dark skin helped hide the older ones but the serious and deep ones like the one on her face and a few on her lower back stood out no matter what. There was a reason she preferred boys' clothes and long sleeves over dresses and shorts.

"Because it's a charity benefit, Sam," said an unfamiliar female voice behind Wren. Gabe smiled and nodded at the woman as if to say, 'that's why.' Wren just turned to see a brunette woman facing a teen with curly hair of the same light brown and green eyes. The boy, Sam, groaned and said, "But Ma, it's nothing but _hair_."

The woman huffed and walked away, saying she was going to find Sam's father and mumbling about blond hair and needing wine. The boy sighed and turned to the other teenager that had showed up beside him when his mother left. Sam said, "See, Bee, I _told_ you she wouldn't like the hair." The other boy, Bee she guessed, reached up to run his hand through his hair and shrugged; it was as short and curly as his friend's but light blond with black streaks throughout. It was distracting and Wren could see why the older woman hadn't been happy about it, though the blond obviously wasn't related to them with his height and striking blue eyes, familiar eyes.

Wren shouldn't have been listening, she knew, but she was bored. This 'party' was about as interesting as watching paint dry and she needed _some_ entertainment. She looked over to Gabe to find that his attention had been drawn to Thomas O'Malley, the man who owned the gallery he hung his artwork in. She shook her head and grinned; they so had a thing for each other. Wren turned to place her empty glass on the table she had been leaning on and dropped it as someone bumped into her. The glass harmlessly bounced onto the table and hands reached out to steady her.

"Oh god, I'm sorry, I didn't see you. Well, I wasn't looking, more like, I guess. I'm sorry, I didn't mean…" Sam's babbling stopped as Wren turned to him and waved her hand. "It's alright, no harm done," she said.

Sam blushed and held his hand out. "Well, uh, I'm Sam and this is my friend, Bee." The blond boy smiled and waved, seemingly disinclined to speak. He had dimples.

Wren smiled and shook his hand, saying, "Wren." An arm wrapped itself around her shoulders and a voice from behind her added, "And Gabe." Wren did nothing but shake the arm off, she didn't particularly enjoy being touched, and elbowed him in the stomach lightly. He doubled over, coughing, and she smirked and said to Sam, "And my idiot friend Gabe."

Sam waved at the man Wren had introduced as Gabe; he looked to still be in pain from that shot to the gut, and turned back to the woman he had bumped into. She was nearly his height, but that didn't mean much; he was short, coming in at just under six foot. She had a long scar that went from her face to her neck and markings on her arm that he couldn't quite get a good look at. Markings that looked way too familiar. More than that, though, there was this odd sort of wary intelligence about her, as if she expected the world to shift and this momentary peace to be a lie. It was the same sort of wariness he noticed around the Autobots and soldiers on base. It was a soldier's wariness and this girl was obviously a soldier.

He was about to say something else when her bright blue eyes, the same color as Bee's and he really hadn't thought that that color could possibly natural until now, and maybe it still wasn't because there was something about this woman that wasn't quite human, widened and he felt Bumblebee stiffen behind him right before the lights went off and people started to scream.

Bee shoved Sam at the door at the same moment that Wren shoved at Gabe. Both stumbled forward and both turned back, only to find their companions gone. Sam turned into the chaos, knowing what was happening and needing to get his parents out and Gabe turned for the doors, looking for Wren. He ran outside, pushing through frantic and panicking people as the sound of groaning metal was heard. He searched through the parking lot, and it really hadn't seemed quite so huge before, nearly got himself run over by a yellow Camaro with black racing stripes and still saw hide nor hair of Wren and couldn't find her car. He stood in the place the car had been, cursing his luck before Wren's voice, sounding metallic and tinny, called out, "Gabriel, move!" right before Sam slammed into him, shoving out of the way of two huge wrestling robots.

Seriously. Giant robots. He wasn't sure if he had drank too much wine or was still asleep but either way, it was freaking _epic._

Sam dragged the other man back, he was stronger than he looked, and hid them both in the trees. He knew a Con had attacked the place and he could figure that they had wanted him, but what he couldn't figure out was how they had found him. The cloaking device Ratchet had created should have kept the Cons from tracking that strange energy he was giving off. But the more pressing matter to him was the Cybertronian going head to head with Barricade. It- _she,_ his mind whispered_, femme_- _she_ was tall, taller than Bee at least, streamlined and completely black apart from a single white stripe going down her chassis. And her optics were Autobot blue, though he couldn't spot an insignia of any kind on her.

Sam knew he should be moving, getting the civilian to safety (he was beginning to think like the soldiers now) and that he most definitely should not be standing still and watching this unknown femme fight. He couldn't help it though. He had seen they others fight many times before, he had been in the middle of a few battles, and he knew that they battled with raw strength, but this was something else completely. This femme moved with a grace and agility nothing that large should ever have. She moved like a dancer. The only other mech he had seen move like that was Optimus Prime in battle with Megatron. This femme was all warrior and maybe just slightly familiar, like he had met her before. Actually, she reminded him of-

The sound of jet engines and dropping missiles had everyone, Even the Decepticon, pausing for a moment. Strikezone growled when she saw the blue F-22 that was making the friendly skies not-so-friendly tonight. Thundercracker. He swung around to try again, aiming for the building this time, and she only paused long enough to assure herself that Bumblebee could take care of Barricade. The Con Shock Trooper was on all fours after a particularly heavy kick to the abdominal plating from her so she used his back as a springboard and transformed as she jumped. Her aerial form was still a standard Cybertronian flyer's tetra-jet, sleeker and smaller than Megatron's war-altered one, and modified to be a bit faster than most. She caught up to Thundercracker and opened fire on his unprotected back. Striker managed to shoot out both thrusters and if she had been biped she would have grinned more than a bit sadistically as he went careening into the bit of woods beside the gallery the party had been held at.

She followed him in and transformed, looking for any sign of him and keeping her sensors on high. "Come out, Dcepticon, and face me like a mech!" she yelled. He was at a disadvantage here on the ground and she planned to use that fact. Thundercracker was a prideful mech, not stupid, but she knew if she riled him up enough he'd come out. "Running and hiding is for sparklings, TC. I thought you were a full grown, _elite, Vosian flyer_, but I guess not." Striker tilted her head as a branch cracked behind her and smiled. She knew that nickname would get to him. She waited another moment, listening to his almost silent footsteps, before she spun on him and transformed her arm into a modified ion blaster. The smug glitch just smirked in the blue light of her ion blaster and said, "You're just an Autobot, and on top of that, a _femme_, we both know you can't do anything to me. You're just too weak. And the weak never survive."

She smiled grimly. "Survival of the fittest? You're on the wrong side of the blaster to champion that, Decepticon. I may not be able to offline you, but I can most certainly ground you," and with that, she transformed both hands into swords and slashed at either wing before Thundercracker could even think about what she had said. He screamed in pain and rage, the thrusters and wings were two of the most sensitive places on a Seeker and she had just mangled both. He was grounded. It was all Strikezone could do to get up in the air before he opened fire on her. She was banged up enough; she didn't need to add laser fire burns to the list.

She landed in the destroyed parking lot, dropping to one knee as she did because those field repairs she and Sunny had done weren't great and were starting to give after a few centuries. A questioning whir had her head snapping toward the sound, she _knew_ that sound. It sounded like- "_Bumblebee?!_"

The little black and yellow bot slowly dropped his arms, powered down his cannons, and transformed them back into hands. His optics wide as they contracted and dilated, the equivalent of human blinking. He whirred again before a soft, rusty voice asked, "Strikezone?" She nodded and stood, faulty patches forgotten, and hugged him tight. She had dearly missed her adoptive little brother.

"Wren?!" yelled out a panicked male voiced from below them. Gabriel had escaped the tight grip Sam had on him and was now standing at the femme's feet. She chuckled nervously. She had never expected him to know her secret, but now, she supposed, the truth was better than lies so, "Uh, hi Gabe. How's your night going?"

Gabriel simply stood there, mouth hanging open and brown eyes wide, before he blinked slowly, smiled and promptly passed out. Sam caught the other man before he could hit the ground and looked up to Bumblebee for assistance and an explanation. His partner shrugged and static issued from his speakers before, "_I'm dazed and confused... It's been a while since I could say I… know where you are, truth be told I miss you._"

"Yeah, Bee, I missed you too." She pulled back from him and straightened up before transforming back into a Charger and pulling up her holo form. "Alright, let's get him home. I'll watch over him tonight and then tomorrow I want to meet you two, properly. Can you guys meet at the lookout tomorrow afternoon?" She put Gabe in the passenger seat with the help of Sam after they had agreed and drove off.

Strikezone was ecstatic. Seeing Bumblebee meant the rest of her family was near. It also meant seeing Ori-Optimus. She may have been happy but that didn't mean she was quite so eager to get her spark ripped through again. She would see her family and be as happy as possible.

What else can you do when the threat is your own spark?

**Songs used: Dazed and Confused, It's been a While by Staind, Gives You Hell by All American Rejects**

**The 'survival of the fittest' line was from the Make Prime Speak contest for the first movie. **


	5. Intermission 2

**Intermission 2**

**Lost Children**

"_When you lay me down sleeping, my heart is weeping because I'm keeping a place for all the lost children"_

Strikezone was not a friendly femme and everyone at the Iacon base knew that fact. Optimus Prime was the bravest, or stupidest, mech there and her first friend because of it. He was probably the first to notice just how damaged she was, not physically because Ratchet was an amazing medic and had made sure the femme was better than new, no; all her damage lay in her processor. She couldn't remember anything prior to waking up in the Autobot's med-bay and that alone was enough to make anyone wary. On top of that, she knew nothing of herself, not her creators, her home, why she was in the gladiator pits, not even her own designation. She was nearly fully grown and she knew _nothing_ about herself. On top of that, she seemed to be a skilled warrior, though she had no memory of learning any of it. The battle routines that they all relied on were drilled so deep into her that they were subroutines and instinctive. Optimus had spoken to her the first time to try and ease the turmoil he could see in her mind and quiet the whisperings of the Matrix. Any time after that was simply because they realized they enjoyed the other's company. She had even given him the privilege of naming her since they had given up hope of recovering her memories.

No one was quite sure how Strikezone and the Twin Terrors got together. The whole Command team had gotten together and unanimously decided that it would be a good idea to keep them away from each other. Since the femme was as wild as Sideswipe and as volatile as Sunstreaker and just as prone to snapping, though not as violently, they were right to worry. What they all forgot to factor in was the overly rebellious nature of all three. Once Strikezone found out about their decision, she decided it was time to meet with the twins and they defied the odds by becoming the best of friends. Somehow those clashing personalities worked and they even accepted her into their cadre, making her the first femme Blade Runner on that base.

It was Bumblebee that surprised everyone. The little mech had been the one survivor a particularly vicious attack on the Youth Sectors by the Decepticons. The Decepticons had seen fit to destroy the Sectors, so she and the rest of the Autobots that had seen fit to destroy them.

It had been her audio receptors that had brought her to the med-bay that first night. Ratchet had decided he wanted the sparkling there for the next cycle for observation so he left the little one in a specialized berth to aid his healing. Strikezone's audio receptors were sensitive, especially to high frequencies and sparklings used some high frequencies when they were distressed with no bonds to lean on. Like Bumblebee, who _just wouldn't stop_. She, Ratchet and Jazz were the only three who could hear that particular frequency and since Jazz was on a mission and Ironhide had most likely already dropped Ratchet into an emergency recharge, she had gotten up and headed to the med-bay.

He was a cute little thing, all big blue optics, bright yellow plating and the beginnings of doorwings. He was smart too, seeming to know just when she was lying to him that night to make him feel better. She ended up sleeping in the med-bay that night with him curled up to her chest armor, which was how Ratchet found them that morning and he promptly separated them and sent her off, though he stopped trying after the fourth time. When the little bot had finally been released from the med-bay, it had been perfectly natural for him to sleep in Striezone's quarters. Ironhide was assigned as his official guardian and the two could often be found together though the stubborn little sparkling refused to recharge anywhere but with Strikezone. Since most mechs on the _Ark_ were already sharing quarters and she just happened to still have an empty room, they simply added a second berth in her room when Bumblebee got too big to keep sharing with her. They were almost always found together when they weren't on duty. Bumblebee was Strikezone's little brother as far as she was concerned and they were closer than she and Optimus in some ways. She was the one that had gotten him out at Tyger Pax and they both nearly died for her trouble.

Of course, all of that was before a separation that lasted a few thousand years and revelations about her origins that rocked her world right off its foundations. As she headed toward the lookout the day after Gabe's party, all she could think was, _please, at least let me have my little brother back. Let me have something solid to ground me again. _


	6. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Dirty Little Secret**

"_And all I've tried to hide is eating me apart, trace this life line"_

"What are you?"

Wren shifted uncomfortably on the window seat in Gabriel's room. The morning light that filtered through the window caught his hair and turned it into spun gold and gave him a sort of halo. It made him look innocent and made her feel even worse for that serious expression on his face. He reminded her of Bumblebee sometimes and, like him, she felt that Gabriel was far too young to be involved in her war. They weren't even the same species, for Primus' sake! She just sighed and leaned her head on the bay window and said, "It's a long story and one you really don't need or want to know."

"Bull. You know very well that I will find out some way, so why don't you just save some grief and tell me?" She snorted a bit and looked down, thinking. She knew that a determined Gabriel could be a very bad thing. She looked out the window again, made her choice and hoped it was a good one.

"Promise me you won't tell anyone what you saw, or what I'm about to tell you. No one, not your brother, not your niece, not that gallery owner you've got your eye on, not even the bartender at Frankie's. You got me?" She turned and to look at him and for a moment, Gabe was stuck. She was right about that gallery owner, because Thomas O'Malley was a truly beautiful man and Gabe had a tendency to babble around him, but Wren's eyes at that moment were more than enough to distract a person, no matter what team they bat for. He had noticed how they seemed to glow at odd times but now it was as if she was purposely doing it and at the angle she was sitting, the sun shone right on her as she pushed her hair, which had changed overnight from braids to a short bob, behind her ears and caught her eyes at just the right angle, making seem to glow brighter than could possibly be natural. He just nodded. If it was that important to her, he would keep it secret.

She nodded back and started with the obvious, "I'm not human, as you saw last night. I'm not from this galaxy, let alone the planet. I am Cybertronain and I am one of the few maybe not so lucky survivors of a civil war older than this planet. And Wren is not my real name." It was an afterthought but it was important to her that he knew that that wasn't her name for some reason.

Gabe tilted his head like a confused puppy and said, "Tell me. All of it."

She nodded. She would tell him the truth as she knew it and worry about him kicking her out later. "Cybertron, the planet I come from, is completely metal, as are its inhabitants. We are sentient, living, thinking, feeling, robots. I won't go into details; those are best saved for those who know our history better than me. The condensed version is this; our planet was ravaged and destroyed by civil war and it now lays dark and dormant. What was left of our race had to flee our home planet, searching for the one thing that had set off the final destruction of our home. The All Spark was our life giver and without it, our race was, and still is, doomed. We Autobots sent it off world in order to keep it out of the hands of our tormentors, the Decepticons, those who had once so justly rebelled against our government. They went after it, of course, and we followed, while those who had never chose sides went to seek refuge on other planets. The All Spark found itself here and so did the rest of us. I don't know what happened to it, only that it has been destroyed. I haven't been able to contact my own kind, so I have no knowledge of what has happened on this planet." _Or to my comrades_, she thought as she trailed off. She had this sinking feeling that something terrible had happened in her absence.

Gabe broke into her thoughts with the curious question, "So what _is_ your real name?"

Her blue eyes widened and she said, "Of everything I just told you, _that_ is what you chose to focus on?" He nodded and she tilted her head, murmuring something that sounded like 'strange creature' before she answered his question. "They gave me the designation of Strikezone," because, she wasn't actually sure she would answer to the designation her Creators gave her anymore, so she saw no reason to give it to Gabe. With all the memories she had managed to recover during her period of stasis on the _Ark_, she didn't really think her name was all that important.

"Interesting name," he said, eyes following her as she began to pace. "So, if you're metal, then this body is…?"

"A hard- light holo form. Well, not quite, but there is only so much I can express in a human language," the reply was curt but she was distracted. That restless energy she had not been able to truly dispel or tame, at least, was rearing its ugly helm again, making her restless and fidgety.

"And the name?"

"I couldn't very well go around calling myself 'Striker', now could I? I chose the first name I heard and it just so happened to be Wren."

"So, last night, that was… What, the Decepticons?"

"Two of them. The little yellow one was- Bumblebee. Scrap, I forgot I was supposed to meet him today." Her eyes widened as she checked internal chronometer, "And, I'm late! I'm late!"

Gabriel snickered slightly, thinking of the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. "Mind if I tag along? I wanna meet some of these… Cybertronians," he asked, trying out the alien word on his tongue. She seemed to deliberate for a moment before nodding. "Meet me outside at the car." She said before she simply disappeared. Gabriel only spared a moment to stare before he ran down the hall and practically flew down the stairs, leaving his brother very confused and standing at the foot of them, following her outside.

The passenger door slid open as soon as he left the house and he got in, buckling his seat belt before he realized that there was no one in the driver's seat. He didn't get the chance to say anything before the car threw itself into drive and sped off. By itself. Gabe watched silently for a moment before he said, "This is kind of creepy, you know? No one being in the driver seat."

"This _is_ my body; I should think I can drive myself without someone sitting in the driver seat," came the waspish reply from the speakers which was quickly followed by an annoyed sigh as she said, "But I suppose I can activate my holo if it will keep you from soiling my seats."

"Hey! I'm not scared! Just a little creeped out. And you popping in and out like that is not helping," he added to the newly appeared Wren, or Strikezone, he guessed he should called her. She just tilted her head toward him and snorted, the action so familiar that, for a moment, he almost completely forgot everything she had told him earlier. Almost. There was still the way that the steering wheel moved just slightly more than her hands did and the gearshift moved by itself and she didn't quite seem to be paying attention to the road.

_This is gonna be interesting,_ he thought as she sped even more, heading for the lookout on the edge of town.

0o0

"So, this femme, who is she?" Sam was answered by static coming from the radio, his companion switching channels to find something to explain with. Before he could, though, the quiet of the Lookout was shattered by the aggressive revving of an engine. The Camaro's door opened and Sam scrambled out, confused, as a car raced up the dirt road and stopped just behind him. It was a black Dodge Charger with a white stripe running the length of the car. The passenger door opened and the blonde man, Gabriel, Sam remembered, stepped out. The second he did, the clearing was filled with the hissing sounds he had learned to associate with the transformation of Cybertronians filled the clearing and the femme he had seen last night stood up, her blue optics staring past him to his partner and her chrome Autobot symbol winking at him from her arm between a bunch of old Cybertronian glyphs. Sam almost thought he could read them.

A series of clicks and whirs came from her mouth (Sam only now realized he didn't know her name) and Bumblebee's engine revved. She spoke again in Cybertronian and, if Sam concentrated, he could hear whispered taunts in English behind it. He should tell Ratchet and Prime that his understanding of their language was evolving again, but he wasn't quite ready to be poked and prodded and experimented on like he knew the CMO was planning on doing. He hadn't realized he had zoned out until the sound of transformation behind him and saw his guardian slam into the femme. Sam stood opened mouthed as Gabriel edged away from the fighting robots and said to him, "Is this normal for them?"

Sam gulped as he watched them roll and fight like boys on the playground. "No, not really. Not for Bee, at least. You?"

"Ah, well, you see, I don't really know. This whole thing is brand new to me. Although, she did say something about a holo…" Gabe trailed off as Strikezone rolled on top of Bumblebee and held a wicked looking sword above the yellow robot's throat, something he thought would equal a kill shot if they were anything like humans.

Sam smiled slightly as he realized that this man had been dragged into the world of the Cybertronians the same way he had; abruptly and accidentally. "Do you at least know her name?" he said.

"Strikezone," said an unfamiliar female voice. The black femme- Strikezone- stood up and transformed her sword back into a hand, which she held out to help up Bumblebee. The yellow bot took her hand and stood up, beeping excitedly before he ground out, "That was awesome!"

Strikezone's slanted optics widened as she blurted out, "You can speak!" She was honestly surprised. After Tyger Pax, she never expected to hear his voice again, even if it was gravely from the damage to his vocal processors.

Bee's optics brightened and then dimmed before Sam took the responsibility of explaining for him. "Sometimes. It's painful for him and it shorts out if he uses it for too long, so he mostly just talks through the radio."

"Or you, apparently," she said. "He knows you well Bee. Something I should know?" Sam blushed hard and Bee whirred before his radio clicked on and Amy Winehouse sang out "_No, no, no."_

Gabriel lifted a brow, "Am I missing something?"

"No more than me, I'm sure. Tell me, Bumblebee, what have I missed?" Strikezone was not so sure she wanted to know what had happened after she and her cadre had been separated from the _Ark_, but she knew it was necessary.

Bee whirred sadly, antennae drooping as a slightly more static laced voice said, "If only we knew. That attack left us all scattered. The only thing I know for certain is the status of my own team."

"I know what you mean. My cadre was decimated with only me and the twins left." Striker was suddenly somber, turning her helm to the clear blue sky above her.

Sam was reminded eerily of Prime when she did that and had the odd feeling that she had gotten it from him. To break the mood and shake the odd whispering in his head he had been hearing lately (Sam was very well aware that voices were the first sign of madness, even if he knew it wasn't) he said, "Hey, Strikezone right? Why don't you come over tomorrow? I'm moving into to my dorm and I'm sure we could use the extra help." This was also part of a plan. He knew what he had to tell his best friend tomorrow and he was hoping having the mech's big sister around would help soften the blow. Slightly heartless, but it should work.

"I don't see why not. Tomorrow morning?"

"Sure, just leave me out of the decision making," Gabe mumbled.

"Oh, I'm sorry Gabrielle; did you not want to go? Exactly, so stop whining like a little girl." Ah, there was the sarcasm Bee was missing. Striker and Bee both transformed as Gabe grumbled. He grudgingly got into the car, knowing she would just as likely leave him as take him home.

Sam leaned against the hood of his guardian as he watched the car speed off. "So, that's your sister. Interesting femme." All he got in reply was a grinding of gears like a laugh as he pushed off the hood and slid into the passenger seat. "Let's go call the guys, Bee; I know you want to tell them about this."

An affirmative chirp and a rev of Bumblebee's engine was all the response Sam needed as he sped off towards the Autobot base and Sam got lost in the maze his thoughts had become while he focused on the whispering voices that sounded just a slight bit too mechanical to be human.

0o0

* * *

**Songs used: Rehab by Amy Winehouse**


End file.
